There's nothing more laughable than a politician who's had a rubbish result pretending it's all right. The Barnsley byelection was a poor result for us and we should be honest about that. But we're a party of government now and although we've had to take such difficult decisions, it was the right thing to do entering into coalition. The alternative of a minority government would have been much worse. Given that Labour ran a very negative campaign in Barnsley, playing on people's fears of the cuts, it's obvious that the protest votes are not going to go to the Lib Dems.

But as I said, we got a rubbish result and we should be looking at what this means for us. It's important for all political parties that they don't forget towns like Barnsley. It's been a safe Labour seat for decades, with 60-70% of people voting for the Labour candidate, and one of the problems of our system is that people are forgetting about these kind of places. The problem with safe seats is that they lead to complacent MPs who do not have to work that hard to earn votes and this was far worse in Barnsley, where Eric Illsley abused the system and broke the law, but was still re-elected last May.

Like many places up and down the country, Barnsley is a town where people are worried about what is going to happen to them when the government's necessary but tough cuts will hit them. For example, in the constituency, long-term unemployment – especially among young people – has been increasing and people are clearly not confident our government is doing enough about this. This is entirely understandable and it is our job to listen to those worries and try and ease them or to see where we can help.

Vince Cable last night addressed this issue in a speech in the City of London. He was frank about the fact that we can't perform a growth miracle overnight and that it will require some time before we can put the worst economic crisis that has hit Britain since the second world war behind us. We must communicate better that we will be delivering vigorous and targeted action where we can. That is why we've been increasing the places for apprenticeships, for example, and why we are reforming the welfare system so it protects the most vulnerable while also helping people back into work.

Let's not forget though that we have been supporting many people in these tough times already, such as pensioners and people on low incomes. In April, nearly 900,000 people will be lifted out of tax and even more people will be left with more money to spend because we're raising the level at which their wages are being taxed.

Pensioners, too, will have a better deal come April with an extra £4.50 a week thanks to our triple guarantee that we will be raising the state pension each year in line with prices, earnings, or 2.5% – whichever is the highest. For the first time in decades, pensions will be linked to income again and that will make a real difference, especially for those people who remember Labour's pitiful pension raise of 75p in 2000.

That is something we can be proud of but we must give our campaigners the tools and the help to put that message to people. We've got local elections coming up and our councillors and activists will be worried by the Barnsley result. That is why at our upcoming Spring conference in Sheffield we will work hard to speak to our activists, to the people of Sheffield and to the British public. Our conferences are famous for dialogue and the involvement of our members and that is exactly what we will be doing this time round. Throughout this weekend we'll be discussing uniquely liberal approaches to issues such as youth justice, ministers will hold advice surgeries for activists and from Thursday, Nick Clegg and almost a dozen other ministers will be out and about in Sheffield meeting with local residents, groups and businesses.

Seven weeks ago in Oldham we achieved that best result in a byelection for a party in government in 30 years, which shows that where we go out campaigning, knocking on doors and speaking to people in street we can put that positive message across to people. We increased our share of the vote there and what's happened in the seven weeks since then? Our rating in the opinion polls has gone up. We can keep this trend going by showing the work we're doing nationally as well as locally. In Sheffield, for example, the Lib Dem-run council has managed to keep the compulsory redundancies to only 270. Elsewhere, we can pride ourselves on the fact that not a single Sure Start centre is being closed in Liberal Democrat-run councils.

So it's a tough result and we will have to take it on board. But we shouldn't believe the people falling all over themselves to pronounce the death of the Liberal Democrats. We're making a genuine difference in government and we will continue to do so. Once we've pulled the British economy through and shown the people of Barnsley and Britain that we are making the right, though tough, decisions now, we'll be able to look back on this byelection as the point from which we built all the way up to our success in the 2015 general election.